


Words Per Minute

by RandomBattlecry



Category: The IT Crowd
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-19
Updated: 2011-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomBattlecry/pseuds/RandomBattlecry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that she fancies Roy, <i>heavens</i> no. But there’s a certain something. And the height difference is intriguing, in a way. The capper to all these considerations is that <i>he</i> apparently fancies <i>her</i>. Jen attempts to move past the magician; Roy attempts to move past Moss kissing him. Episode-tag sort of thing for 3x02.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Per Minute

**Words Per Minute**

In the aftermath of the magician, Jen’s taking the time to have a bit of a listless stare, leaned back in her office chair, eyes fixed on the lone playing card that’s been left behind on her desk. Some sort of commotion in the outer room, a little Irish swearing, and Roy appears at her door with a ginger tap and a tentative smile.

“How’s my soldier?” he says, moving in without waiting for an invite, and edging carefully to the chair across from her. He crosses his legs at the knee and clasps his hands. His attempt at an ingratiating smile makes her just a bit twitchy.

“I hate breaking up with people,” she says, keeping the listless stare trained on the card. “I hate it worse when they break up with me, of course.”

“Of course,” he agrees, closing his eyes briefly and inclining his head. She glances up, narrows her eyes at him.

“Why are you being so agreeable?”

His mouth opens, but nothing particularly coherent comes out. Just something along the lines of, “Ach— I— sh— what?”

Typical.

“You feel guilty, don’t you?” she presses. “You feel guilty for saying he looks like a magician and making me break up with him.”

He raises his hands, palms outwards. “Hey now. _I_ didn’t make you break up—”

“No, but you _must_ have known I couldn’t _possibly_ go out with him. Not with a magician. Not with a _non_ -magician who _looks_ like a magician, Roy. It’s like—” She fumbles briefly for what it’s like. “False advertising!”

Roy sits with his mouth shut and stares at her for a moment, while she reflects that he’s _always_ doing this. He’s always doing something to ruin whatever thing she’s got going. Usually without quite meaning to, but she’s not willing to give him credit for that.

He says, “You’re right. I’m sorry. When I mentioned that he looks like a magician, I forgot to take into account the fact that you’re _completely_ anal retentive, and sort of mental. Next time—”

“Next time!” screeches Jen, slamming her hand on the desk. “There won’t be a next time! I forbid you to make any comments on any of my boyfriends from now on. I absolutely forbid it. No. No, no no.”

“Next time,” continues Roy, loudly, overriding her, “I will keep my mouth shut.”

“But how will you breathe?” she retorts, not lightly, not jokingly; but Roy has suddenly decided it will serve his mysterious purpose better if he acts like this is all a tremendous joke, and he laughs, falteringly.

“You— you’re in a bad way, Jen. I can tell things like that, just by looking at you. But you know what would fix us both up? What would really do the trick?”

“What?” says Jen, frostily. The card is beginning to stare back.

Roy thumps his foot down on the floor and slaps both knees with his hands, as though he’s proposing a lunch out. Or something _really_ helpful, something she’d actually appreciate, like a nice cup of tea and a lie down. “If you kissed me.”

In her time in the IT department, Jen’s become the master of the spit-take; she has a sudden sharp feeling of regret that she isn’t drinking something now as he says this. She would have gotten maximum propelling from that. She could have made the imaginary beverage go for _acres_. She could have reached Roy, probably, even though he was outside the traditional splatter zone. And it would have served him right, too.

As it is, though, she throws back her head and cackles. Post-cackling, she looks at him and says, “ _What_?”

“Just a nice little kiss,” says Roy, edgy, nervous, though apparently not at all surprised to have his suggestion met with derision. He half-stands, hesitantly, as though her response has been interpreted as a _maybe_. “Nothing to it. No— funny business.”

This, of course, is even funnier, and Jen takes another moment to get control of herself.

“You can’t be serious!” she manages eventually, and Roy takes another half-step towards the desk.

“I’m dead serious!”

“No, but Roy, you can’t mean that. You don’t go around kissing people just to cheer them up.”

He stands still, and swallows, and looks a bit guilty. She scrutinizes him.

“Do you? No, you can’t, you can’t. I mean, who’d let you?”

At this he straightens up, and folds his arms defensively. She’s finding everything funny now, though, so even this doesn’t help. She pushes herself out of her chair, punchdrunk from laughter; the chair rolls away as though desperate to escape— she can’t blame it— and Roy catches her arm to keep her from falling. He _has_ been nice to her, for the most part, she reckons; and it probably isn’t very polite to hoot with laughter when someone offers to kiss you. But she can’t stand it.

“Why?” she manages at last. “What’s in it for you? Are you— no— hold on— are you _blushing_?”

His free hand comes up to hide his face; the other tightens around her arm. He shakes his head, curly hair swaying wildly.

“‘M not!”

“You are!”

“No, I’m not, Jen.”

He is, though. She steadies herself against the desk, and scrutinizes him for a minute. Roy— well, Roy’s a good sort. In a manner of speaking. He isn’t handsome, God knows, and he’s callow and inept and socially retarded. But for all that, she has a soft spot for him. He knows what she means, for instance, when she says that _looking_ like a magician without actually _being_ a magician is false advertising.

She’s taken a step forwards, without quite realizing it.

It’s not that she fancies Roy, _heavens_ no. But there’s a certain something. And the height difference is intriguing, in a way. The capper to all these considerations, she realizes as he ineffectually tries to hide the flush of embarrassment on his face, is that _he_ apparently fancies her. _At least he has good taste_ , she congratulates herself, somewhat facetiously, as though she’s giving the compliment to someone she doesn’t much like. In fact his sudden interest is nothing if not suspicious— Roy _doesn’t_ have good taste, and she knows it, and it’s been proven a dozen times over— but she’s caught away by enthusiasm for this poor schlub and his unrequited love affair for his boss, and before she knows it—

“You are,” she says, and puts a cool hand to his cheek. “You see?”

He is staring fixedly downwards, in the direction of her chin. So she leans up, and says, “Alright.” And she puts her hands on his shoulders and her mouth on his. And though in her mind she is painting a pleased picture of the uneducated prole yearning hopelessly after a noble maiden, after the first second or two Roy’s instincts kick in and he seems to realize that, yes, he _is_ being snogged. Snogged as thoroughly as possible, given his height and Jen’s lack of it. And so he wraps his arms around her and pulls her upwards against him and, _well_ , he’s quite good at this after all.

 _That_ is unexpected.

So unexpected, as a matter of fact, that she’s quite excited about the idea of exploring just _how_ unexpected it is, and what _else_ he’s good at. She’s not entirely sure if her feet are even on the ground, at this point; and when she buries her fingers in his curly hair and finds that it’s soft and clean— thank God for that, you can never tell with these geeky types, some of them might not even _believe_ in running water— she makes a vague sort of pleased noise and that’s when Roy decides that enough is enough.

With difficulty, he detaches, and they stand staring at each other for a moment.

Then Roy says, very rapidly, “Thank you, Jen,” ducks his head, turns away, and makes for the door.

“Wha—” says Jen. She manages to get back to the chair before she sits down, but only just barely; turns dulled eyes in the direction of Roy’s retreating back. “What? Hold on a minute. Get back here.”

He stops, and his shoulders hunch before he turns back. His hands are shoved deep into his pockets and he looks like an abashed student called before the headmaster. The headmaster with a reputation for caning.

Jen leans forward over the desk, still stuck in “excited” mode, and gives him her best seductive leer. It’s a habit. She doesn’t mean to do it, but it happens all the same. Roy gives a slightly sick half-smile in return.

“You never did tell me what was in it for you,” she says, as though the answer to this is obvious to everyone in the room. Obvious, but she wants it stated anyway. Just to put it out there. Just so it’s absolutely clear.

Roy disentangles a hand from the depths of one pocket and scratches at the back of his neck.

“I’ll be honest with you, Jen.”

“Please do,” she purrs, and slaps herself mentally. _Stop it!_

“Something—” He pauses, and tilts his head to the side. The next words come out as though he’s biting them. “Something happened earlier, and I didn’t want it to be the _last_ thing that happened, if I should get hit by a bus or something.”

Something.

Jen frowns. “What?” she says, and the irritability makes a reappearance. _Hello there, old friend_.

He grits his teeth. “I didn’t really want to say—”

“Just tell me, Roy!”

“I don’t—”

“You can’t be so vague about things and expect people to understand you. This is a problem you need to work to overcome, Roy. As relationship manager, I have to tell you, it will continue to get in the way of any and all relationships you intend to have in your life. Nobody wants their questions to be answered with generalities, and in the event that—”

He claps his hands over his ears, squinches his eyes shut, and says, “Moss kissed me!”

Jen takes a very deep breath.

“Moss—”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you—”

“Yes.” He shuffles his feet and has the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. Jen stands up, very slowly.

“Moss kissed you, and you were afraid that would be the last kiss you ever got, and so you came here to get one from me?”

Roy shrugs, and looks helpless. “I _tried_ to get someone else, Jen. I did _ask_. I asked everyone I knew. All the girls on Seven. I even asked a homeless lady on the way in, but nobody was having any, Jen—”

“Moss kissed you— _don’t_ tell me why— and then _you_ came and—” She brings her fingers up to her lips. Her violated, IT-department-tainted lips. Oh, God. “Oh, God,” she says, involuntarily.

“And there was a _very_ good reason for it,” Moss’s voice drifts in from the other room, where— oh, _God!_ — he has apparently been listening in all this time. “But no matter _what_ Roy says, Jen, we can keep it professional in the office. The tongue was negligible.”

Roy has gone into freeze-mode, and is just shaking his head in tight little jerks. Jen knows the feeling, but she is not going to show any compassion at the moment.

“ _Out,_ ” she says, and Roy winces and mouths, “Sorry,” at her before obeying.

As the door closes, she hears Moss say, “In the interests of research, Roy, who’s the better kisser? Me, or Jen?”

“Oh, God,” says Jen, helplessly, and subsides into a listless stare again; a stare even more listless than the one prior to it. The phone rings, and she pokes at it; but she can hear Roy pick it up outside the door. Hear him say what he always says.

“IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?”

And it’s only _Monday_.

This is going to be a _very_ long week.


End file.
